Nicholas Associates Supports Childrens Hospital

Nicholas Associates Supports Children’s Hospital

Learning and development company Nicholas Associates has designed a leadership and management development programme for Sheffield Children’s Hospital to support the hospital’s aim to be at the forefront of delivering high quality care.

The Nicholas Associates team designed the bespoke programme to enhance the skills and provide a greater level of support to its managers in driving the business forward. This included a six module programme, which would be delivered over a five month period – based on individual one day modules.

The innovative programme takes into account the business’ context, the hospital’s key priorities and its challenges - with a particular focus on managing within an NHS Trust, where managers are faced with reduced budgets, limited resources and other similar constraints.

A key feature of the programme is its flexibility. As the programme has evolved over time, this meant the nature of the final two modules was not specified when the course was originally designed. This enabled bespoke content to be developed based on the emerging needs of the candidates.

Kristi Hudson, Managing Consultant for the project at Nicholas Associates, said: “This project has been fascinating and I’ve really enjoyed working with a team of such passionate and engaged individuals. Sheffield Children’s Hospital provided the flexibility for us to develop and deliver a programme that truly meets the needs of the delegates and its Trust and I look forward to working with them in the future.”

Nicholas Associates’ consultants have recently delivered the programme to the first cohort of 16 staff, which included a range of clinical and administrative managers across the hospital.

Simon Holmes, learning and development manager at Sheffield Children’s Hospital, said, “I am delighted with the new programme and feedback from its participants is positive. This programme is very different to anything we had in place before as line managers are encouraged and supported to reflect on and apply their learning in the workplace. They are also given the opportunity to use real-life examples to explore concepts and theories, which is really making a difference.”

Nicholas Associates offers a full range of services which includes recruitment, learning and talent development, lean and organisational development, robotics and automation and software. The company is dedicated to helping people and businesses to achieve their goals.

Nicholas Associates is part of Stafforce, which has over 25 branches, onsite operations and hubs nationwide. The company has built its reputation on adding value to the service it offers to customers and providing dedicated consultancy and recruitment services based on knowledge, understanding, innovation and compliance.